AI Agent Exercises

First order of business, Takeaways Worksheet here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15ezMo6nnC-aPtNTCMmesaSUADqlJxdkL/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115622046555211467896&rtpof=true&sd=true

A hands-on lab for building your first AI agent in Claude Cowork, using a messy, fully synthetic project folder.

Everything in this repo is fictional. Larkfield Home Goods, its people, its vendors, and every email, password, and number in these files are made up. All email domains use the reserved .example TLD. We use synthetic data on purpose: we have not covered data governance yet, so no real data goes near an agent today.

The scenario

You’re on the IT team at Larkfield Home Goods (~180 staff). Project Riverside moves headquarters from the old 400 Main Street office to a new office at Riverside Commons, and switches the help desk from a shared mailbox to a new ticketing tool.

The project’s shared drive is a mess: vague folder names, misfiled documents, an outdated plan, email exports, vendor quotes, a spreadsheet, three staff surveys. Your agent’s job is to make sense of it.

Nothing gets moved today. In the triage exercises, your agent writes its plan to a spreadsheet (proposed_path says where each file should go) and leaves the files where they are. That way you can try again as many times as you like, and compare plans with your neighbors.

What’s in the repo

ai-agent-exercises/
├── README.md              ← you are here
├── larkfield-shared-drive/   ← the project folder. Connect ONLY this folder to Claude.
├── memo/                  ← the memo for Exercise 4
├── _eval/                 ← the answer key and scoring script for Exercise 5 (don't open yet)
└── example-skills/        ← two example skills for Exercise 4 (optional)

Connect only the folder that each exercise names. If you connect the whole repo, your agent can read this README and the answer key, and your results won’t tell you much.

Before you start

1. A paid Claude plan (Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise). Team and Enterprise users: your admin must allow Cowork and skills.
2. Claude Desktop, updated to the latest version. It runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux (beta: Ubuntu 22.04+ or Debian 12+, with KVM enabled for Cowork).
3. Settings → Capabilities → “Code execution and file creation” turned on. You need this for skills and for the scoring script in Exercise 5.
4. Download this lab (the zip from the Releases page, or git clone) and unzip it somewhere easy to find, like your Desktop.

Which interface do you have? Since September 2026, Anthropic has been rolling out a version where Chat and Cowork are merged. If your message box shows “Chat” and “Cowork” options, you have the classic interface. If not, you have the new one. The steps below cover both.